Mikhail Gorbachev's Decisive Role in a Cold War's End Essay Example
Mikhail Gorbachev's decisive role in a Cold War's end
: Was it possible that the end of the Cold War happened without Gorbachev?
Introduction
The very end of the Cold War happened 'suddenly' in 1991. A dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was consequentially connected to the Cold War's end. However, The Soviet Union had a strong military power both conventionally and strategically until 1985, and its economy could still endure more. In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, was inaugurated as a leader of the Soviet Union. After six years of Gorbachev's leadership, the Soviet Union collapsed. At this time, Ronald Reagan, the president of the United States of America since 1981 until 1989, implemented various policies against the Soviet Union, and some of those policies were actually effective. In historical debate, scholars have argued about who brought an end to the Cold War indicating that this matter is quite controversial. Also, knowing who played a crucial role is historically significant to understand why and how the Cold war ended. In historical debates on the reasons for the end of the Cold War, Peter Schweizer and Raymond L. Garthoff pronounced very different point of view. Peter Schwerzer, a conservative author and a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution analyzed, in his thesis, the collapse of the Soviet Union in the context of a systematic crisis. In his point of view, the end of the Cold war was caused by an inherent systematic crisis of the Soviet Union exacerbated by Reagan's policy; Gorbachev is rarely mentioned in his text. One of the few mentions of Gorbachev is "Absent this systemic crisis, Gorbachev never would have begun his walk down the path of change" (Peter Schweizer, Victory: The Reagan Administration's Secret Strategy That Hastened the Collapse of the Soviet Union (1994), p. xii). Not only is he intentionally excluding Gorbachev in his thesis, but he is also disparaging
: Was it possible that the end of the Cold War happened without Gorbachev?
Introduction
The very end of the Cold War happened 'suddenly' in 1991. A dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was consequentially connected to the Cold War's end. However, The Soviet Union had a strong military power both conventionally and strategically until 1985, and its economy could still endure more. In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, was inaugurated as a leader of the Soviet Union. After six years of Gorbachev's leadership, the Soviet Union collapsed. At this time, Ronald Reagan, the president of the United States of America since 1981 until 1989, implemented various policies against the Soviet Union, and some of those policies were actually effective. In historical debate, scholars have argued about who brought an end to the Cold War indicating that this matter is quite controversial. Also, knowing who played a crucial role is historically significant to understand why and how the Cold war ended. In historical debates on the reasons for the end of the Cold War, Peter Schweizer and Raymond L. Garthoff pronounced very different point of view. Peter Schwerzer, a conservative author and a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution analyzed, in his thesis, the collapse of the Soviet Union in the context of a systematic crisis. In his point of view, the end of the Cold war was caused by an inherent systematic crisis of the Soviet Union exacerbated by Reagan's policy; Gorbachev is rarely mentioned in his text. One of the few mentions of Gorbachev is "Absent this systemic crisis, Gorbachev never would have begun his walk down the path of change" (Peter Schweizer, Victory: The Reagan Administration's Secret Strategy That Hastened the Collapse of the Soviet Union (1994), p. xii). Not only is he intentionally excluding Gorbachev in his thesis, but he is also disparaging